YouTube Growth Strategy
Find the right keywords:
Just like in general SEO, keywords play an important part in being discovered on YouTube. Keywords should be integrated into the title, description and content itself (with CC added).
How to pick the right keywords?
Start with a seed keyword. This is a more generic term related to the channels product and audience. For example in our case “Long Term Care”.
Identify long-tail, low competition keywords based on the seed keyword. See below for an example of using autocomplete to identify long-tail keywords.
Or use a tool like https://keywordtool.io/youtube.
The Video Itself
Everyone agrees that this is the crux of making it on YouTube. If you don’t have good content that people want to watch, all other tactics are of no use. Assuming the content is decent there are a few metrics worth paying attention to:
Length - ~10 minutes according to backlinko
Short and concise intro
Capture watchers attention using - pattern interruptions etc.
Title - gets clicks but isn’t clickbait.
Thumbnail that stands out.
Optimize tags
Incorporate into a playlist.
Ask people to subscribe.
Use end cards.
Content Planning
One of the keys to success on YouTube is consistency. Posting at least once a week is important to get recognized by an audience and by the platform. Being consistent also means posting at roughly the same day and time every week.
Organizing content into playlists can help people stay in your content and on YouTube (adds points!).
Collaboration
Partnering with other channels to create content together is a great way to cross promote and grow a channel. According to Sprout Social it is important to collaborate with channels that share the same passion so that the content comes off as authentic.
Becoming part of the YouTube community and engaging with other peoples content is also useful for getting recognized and building a following.
Paid ads
In the end of the day it is always possible to get more views using paid ads on and off YouTube. YouTube offer a variety of ad options including display ads, overlay ads, and skippable ads.
That said it is rare to see content creators using ads to promote their content.